Veteran point guard Jamaal Tinsley has been cut loose by the Utah Jazz, the team announced today. From the press release: “Tinsley (6-3, 188, Iowa State) appeared in eight games this season for Utah, averaging 1.1 points, 1.4 rebounds and 2.9 assists in 13.8 minutes per game. Tinsley was signed as a free agent on October 26.”

John Lucas III sits at his locker, gently bobbing his head along to the music flowing from his headphones. He looks down and rubs at the fresh tape-job engulfing his ankles and chomps on some of the fruit that was displayed in the middle of the away team locker room in the TD Garden. To his right is Jamaal Tinsley, a man known by many as the starting point guard for the Indiana Pacers for much of the last decade. The two Utah Jazz guards are just a couple of the 103 current NBA players who have logged minutes in the NBA Development League.

“We’ve both been through the grind and we understand that it’s a privilege to be here,” Lucas says. The Oklahoma State alum went undrafted after leading the Cowboys to the Final Four in 2005 and began his professional career with the Tulsa 66ers in ’05-06. The Houston Rockets claimed him for 13 games during that season. “The one thing the D-League instilled in me is that it made me appreciate the game more. I always cherished those days—you know the bus rides, the hungriness of trying to get to that next level. It always stays in the back of my mind.”

Lucas entered the D-League just four years after it’s formation in November 2001—the NBA Board of Governors voted to approve the D-League in October 1999. Back then, Allen Iverson reigned supreme and the vast majority of the basketball world had never even heard of a high school kid named LeBron James.

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The D-League debuted with eight teams, located primarily in the southeast. Then, the D-League was strictly the official minor league basketball organization of the NBA. Today, all eight of the teams are defunct, with four of the clubs folding in various years and the four others morphing into affiliate organizations that are still alive and thriving.

Coincidentally, it wasn’t until Lucas arrived in Tulsa that the NBA made a concerted effort to turn the D-League into a true minor league farm system to the NBA.

In 2005, as part of the League’s new CBA, the D-League began its affiliation/assignment system where players with two or fewer years of NBA experience could be assigned to a D-League team up to three times while every NBA organization became directly affiliated a D-League club. In April 2006, the Los Angeles Lakers became the first NBA team to purchase and operate their own NBA D-League affiliate.

Today, 14 NBA teams own their own D-League team, operating in a single affiliate. The remaining 16 teams have been divided into shared affiliations with the Bakersfield Jam, Fort Wayne Mad Ants and Iowa Energy—a setup that has forged the D-League into breeding the next NBA personnel in all aspects of the sport and business.

“Our mission is to develop players, coaches, referees, front office executives and everybody else for the NBA,” says Dan Reed, President of the NBA Development League. “We’ve had 44 coaches called up to the NBA, more than half of the referees currently in the NBA were hired directly from the NBA Development League and there’s over 50 front office executives—sales people, dance team members, you name it—who have come through the NBA Development League to the NBA.”

The NBA’s individual organizations have bought in. Reed is very proud of the fact that 10 of those 14 parent clubs have bought their D-League affiliates within the last three years, the most recent being the Philadelphia 76ers purchasing the Utah Flash and turning them into the Delaware 87ers this summer.

“It seems that every single year, the league has gotten better and better and better,” says Chris Alpert, NBA Development League Director of Basketball Operations. “We’re extremely bullish on the future of the D-League and more and more NBA teams are engaged in what we’re doing.”

The D-League has certainly come a long way since it was born almost 12 years ago, and is still growing. Last week, for example, the D-League vastly improved their annual draft, which we’ll touch on later. And at the conclusion of the ’11-12 season, almost 30 percent of players on NBA rosters had D-League experience, and three earned rings with the Miami Heat. But the truth of the matter is, the D-League still has kinks that could be smoothed out, including losing many players to overseas leagues and low salaries. But there are also plenty of innovative changes the D-League has already initiated that it could continue to progress.

Battling the Overseas Leagues

As the D-League’s main premise is to develop players for the next level, the league recognizes that the basketball world is essentially flat today. Alpert, who coordinates every single D-League contract, says that the NBADL doesn’t view overseas leagues as competition, but merely another opportunity for players to grow and earn a living.

“I think more and more international teams and scouts are looking at the D-League as an extremely competitive league and if players can prove they can play well in the D-League, maybe players can help their stock overseas as well,” Alpert says. “If we have a hand in developing their skills a little bit better to help them obtain a better job than we feel as though we’re accomplishing our goal.”

And even though playing in the D-League has created many more lucrative playing options overseas for its players, Alpert and Reed believe that the D-League is the second best professional basketball league on the globe.

“If you look at the number of players with NBA experience that have come out of the NBA Development League, five times more NBA players have played in the D-League than any other league in the world,” Reed says. “We would put a D-League team against anybody.”

While Reed recognizes that competitive opportunity doesn’t exist today, it’s also important to note that his argument for the D-League’s prominence is somewhat flawed. The sheer number of players in the NBA with D-League experience compared to other pro leagues is likely more related to the farm system aspect of the D-League rather than the league’s talent pool. Many NBA scouts actually view the Euroleague as a more competitive league. If that’s the case, it’s likely because the European teams have drawn more talented players to their organizations with more money.

D-League Salaries and Contracts

As previously mentioned, Alpert coordinates every D-League contract. If a player is on a D-League roster and isn’t on assignment and thus doesn’t have an NBA contract, that player is under contract directly with the D-League and not his specific team. The benefit of signing a D-League contract as opposed to a contract with, say, the Austin Toros, is that any D-League player can be claimed by any NBA team at any given time.

But that proposition comes with a price—or in this case, a lack of one. While the D-League officially keeps it’s financial information confidential, several agents have told SLAM that the league operates its contracts by offering A, B and C contracts of differing values. That A Contract’s salary is roughly $25,000, with a B Contract coming in at around $19,000 and the C Contract totaling around $13,000.

In fairness, those contracts come with housing, medical and dental benefits, per diem on road trips, transportation to and from games and compensatory bonuses based off of performances over the span of a 50-games.

“There are individual bonuses for getting an end-of-season recognition, and there are performance bonuses based on how the team does,” Alpert says. “When you add all those things up and you take into account that the season’s only about five months long—not saying it’s something players can make a career out of and do for seven or eight years—they can actually sustain themselves and the biggest thing they’re here for is to try and get called up to the NBA.”

Indiana Pacers forward Chris Copeland is one of those players who hoped for a chance in the NBA while playing in the D-League. But ultimately, as Alpert suggests is common practice, Copeland put his NBA dream on hold to make more money overseas.

“I think anybody that’s trying to get to the NBA and doesn’t get a shot, needs to go and give [the D-League] a shot,” Copeland told SLAM this summer. “But I had to start trying to secure my future financially a little bit. It’s cool to keep trying, but it just didn’t seem like that would have been the best move for me at that point.”

Copeland played his first professional year during the ’06-07 season in the D-League with the Fort Worth Flyers before spending five seasons in Europe. He then triumphantly made the Knicks roster after impressing in training camp last fall.

But if the D-League’s maximum salary wasn’t $25,000 and was maybe $75,000, perhaps players like Copeland and dozens of undrafted free agents each year would stay stateside. Tinkering the contract structure is something Reed says was on the “b-list” of the 2011 CBA discussions and that the “discussion is an ongoing process.”

How could the Reed and Alpert offer players more money? They could experiment with advertising and ticket promotions. In the 2012 D-League playoffs, BBVA advertised on every team’s jersey. Chris Makris, the general manager of the Iowa Energy, has an interesting idea as well.

“If [NBA teams] have the rights to 10 players or five of the players, that would naturally make NBA teams feel more comfortable to invest more financially and would in turn improve salaries,” Makris says of the current assignment system only allowed D-League teams to carry a maximum of two players on NBA contracts on it’s 12-player roster.

His idea would open the door for the creation of an entirely new D-League contract and perhaps transition the league into a functioning more like AHL Hockey and Minor League Baseball.

“I think the best example of that is AHL Hockey,” Makris says. “They have what is basically two-way contracts where teams keep players’ rights and if they’re at the AHL level they get paid one thing and if they’re brought up to the NHL level, they get paid another thing. I think something like that is really intriguing as our league continues to mature and will at least hopefully be in discussions. I’m very excited about the league’s future and to be a part of it.”

Overall, if NBA teams aren’t delegating more money to their farm system, the entertainment value of the D-League would need a boost. More in-game entertainment would breed more revenue, which in turn could increase salary. Finding that increase in entertainment is something the league will have to keep experimenting with. When it comes to testing new league strategies, the D-League already does a phenomenal job of doing so.

NBA Experimental League

While the D-League is most commonly thought of as the place where raw guys like Hasheem Thabeet and Fab Melo go to mature their games, it’s also a league that allows for great experimentation by the NBA.

Sticking with personnel, the D-League provides a great opportunity for teams to explore all avenues of coaching. For example, the Oklahoma City Thunder employ Darko Rajakovic as the head coach of their single-affiliate D-League club, the Tulsa 66ers, but also have him in practice and on the bench during games with the Thunder when the D-League is out-of-season.

“It’s a great learning experience for me,” says Rajakovic, who’s entering his second year at the helm of the 66ers. “It’s a great chance for me to learn in those six months from the coaches in Oklahoma City and when I come back to Tulsa, I try to make a replica of the whole program and everything they’re running within the Thunder.”

In just his one year with the Thunder and 66ers, Rajakovic has helped develop Daniel Orton, Jeremy Lamb, Perry Jones, Reggie Jackson and Thabeet into players worth of quality rotation minutes in the NBA. Additionally, almost 40 active NBA coaches began their career in the D-League and every NBA referee hired since 2002 began in the D-League as well.

The D-League also provides the NBA with the chance to experiment with a few on-court rule changes, although Alpert points out that the D-League’s similarity in rules with the NBA is another attractive aspect to players.

“We do also play with the international goal-tending rule, the live ball rule and we also play with a three-minute overtime, which is a little different than in the NBA rules,” Alpert says.

The D-League has experimented quite a lot with technology over the past few years as well. Most notably, the League now broadcasts all of its games over a YouTube livestream, making the contests accessible all around the world. Most recently, the D-League conducted its annual draft last week through the Cisco WebEx Meeting Center, the first American professional sports draft ever conducted electronically.

Lastly, the D-League has also instrumented several innovative ways for players to simply come into landing a spot on an D-League team.

“All contracts in the D-League are non-guaranteed contracts,” Alpert says. “Outside of NBA-assigned players, all players that are in the D-League are signed to D-League contracts and then there are various mechanisms by which they can get into a training camp or get to a team. It’s either they’re a returning player, they’re a potential affiliate player, they’re a local tryout player or they’re a drafted player.”

The D-League’s minimum age of 18, as opposed to the NBA’s minimum age of 19, also provides the league with an interesting talent pool of players hoping to use the D-League as a springboard into the NBA Draft—essentially opening the door for high school players to play professionally and forgo college. This past June, Glen Rice Jr was selected by the Washington Wizards in the NBA Draft after spending the ’12-13 season with the Rio Grande Valley Vipers. This season, the Delaware 87ers have drafted Norvel Pelle, Athanasis Antetokounmpo and Aquille Carr—all players who will likely enter the 2014 NBA Draft.

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Overall, the NBA Development League has grown exponentially since it first came into existence and its potential ceiling is as high as that of many of its players’ respective games. With all of the above in mind, it’s important to not lose track of the fact that the D-League is a fully functioning league on its own. It has its own playoff system, players can be traded among teams and general managers are ultimately trying to build a winner on the court.

“When you get to compete in a different realm, to be able to put together that team and go to battle with that team, and match wits with other NBA teams and other NBA D-League teams, it fuels me every day,” Makris says.

That competitive atmosphere is what ultimately fuels guys like John Lucas, who are simply trying to make a name for themselves, and guys like Jamaal Tinsley and Rasual Butler—who played for Rajakovic in Tulsa last season and is now with Copeland in Indianapolis—to get back into the League after falling off their games a touch.

“I took everything in stride,” Lucas says. “You know, the bus rides, catching Southwest flights, being delayed in the city, getting to the city maybe four hours before the game starts, getting off the plane and playing, then getting right back on the plane and going to the next game. You don’t take anything for granted.”

NBADL teams are officially allowed to open their training camps for the ’13-14 season today. While the D-League represents a lot of things to many different people and its product and league model may, and likely will, completely change five seasons from now, the possibilities have the D-Leagues higher-ups excited and should thrill fans of the NBA, too.

“We do have a variety of models and we think they all will work,” Reed says of the league’s future plans. “We eventually see a 30-team league with every team singly affiliated with an NBA team, but we’re not in a rush to get there. In the meantime, we think our current model works quite well.”

Ultimately, that model boils down to what fuels NBA, the topic that drives the two Jazz backcourt-mates’ conversations and careers each day.

“We talk about trying to get a win,” Tinsley says, as Lucas nods and flashes a smile. “We just take it one day at a time.”

The once starting point guard for the Indiana Pacers is looking to get back to the NBA. And if that means working his way up from the D-League to get there, that’s what he’s planning to do. From Yahoo Sports: “Jamaal Tinlsey hopes to return to the NBA, and he wants to use the Development League to help his efforts. Tinsley has sent in the needed paperwork to enter Thursday’s NBA Development League draft, sources told Yahoo! Sports. Tinsley, 33, averaged 9.8 points and 6.6 assists per game through eight NBA seasons while starting 366 of 436 career regular-season games. He last played in the NBA with the Memphis Grizzlies during the 2009-10 season. The deadline to enter the D-League draft is Tuesday. The Los Angeles D-Fenders have the first pick in Thursday’s draft. Top pick candidates include former NBA center Jamal Sampson, former Villanova forward Curtis Sumpter, former DePaul forward Mac Koshawl, former Dayton forward Chris Wright and former Texas A&M-Corpus Christi center Chris Daniels. The Reno Bighorns selected former NBA forward Nick Fazekas with the top pick in last year’s D-League draft.'”

Vegas’ Impact League continues to remind us what we might be missing come October 9th. Highlight’s from Day 6 included Chauncey draining pull-up threes, John Wall showing off his handle, and JJ Hickson letting JaVale McGee know what it feels like to be “the other guy” in a poster.

Such a busy night in the NBA and where was my focus? Milwaukee, the same place as most of the NBA people on Twitter. I cannot express in words how exciting it is to see the hype the Bucks now have around them as a team, and the mild hysteria that has erupted around Jennings. It’s fun. With Twitter, we get to watch the evolution from rookie to star-in-waiting, through nine games.

We also got to all panic in unison as he took a Brook Lopez knee to the thigh in the fourth and appeared to be down for the count for a few seconds before shaking it off in a timeout. Whew. The Bucks survived to get another W.

The Nets, well, they survived, but 0-12 is just awful. It’s dreadful. Especially when Chris Douglas-Roberts is exerting his healthy self for 45 minutes, and putting up a career-high of 31 points to go with 10 boards in the loss.

My highlight was Jennings slipping past NJ defenders and getting a dunk in the game. Also postgame when he said that’s probably all you’ll see from him in terms of dunks this season. He had 19 points and eight assists, but he also turned the ball over for every one of those assists.

Just listen to him talk about his 55-point explosion in this interview. The best is when he says, “I love to play basketball. That’s all I really want to do. I’m not worried about the other things that come with it. The main thing is playing basketball getting wins, making my teammates better and making this city want to come back to the Bucks games every night.”

He gets it. He’s 20 years old and he gets it. Gonna be lots more to come from this guy.

Raja Bell playing in Boston for the Warriors last night.

That’s a guy that recognizes the blessing of this game and of his career. For a guy who is supposedly getting surgery TODAY, gritting out a game against the Celtics by playing through pain when a season is not on the line, for teammates he hasn’t really played with that’s respect for the game. That’s why he deserves ours.

He did play for Nellie before, though. Had a jolt from the past hit me, as I thought about Raja being in Dallas for a season before he went to Utah and became known as a defensive stopper and one I’ll always enjoy.

The Kobe clothesline was hard for me to take, but he acknowledged that he lost his cool on that play. Still as a Lakers supporter, I never thought he’d end up being my go-to NBA guy when people ask who is the easiest to talk to. From that very first NBA preseason game in Vancouver between the Suns and Sonics (RIP, sonics), Raja was just easy.

He’s a guy who loves the game and is thankful to be playing it. I’ve got love for that.

The Raptors played like the Raptors as they lost in Utah. Getting down by 18 in the opening minutes, then cutting it to three at the end of three only to fall apart in the fourth and lose to the Jazz, 104-91. Chris Bosh was fantastic in the loss, scoring 32 points to go with 17 rebounds, but outside of 19 points from Marco Belinelli off of the bench he didn’t get much help. Boozer was huge for Utah, getting 22 points to go with 18 boards, while rookie Eric Maynor added 15.

The Spurs and Mavs had a crazy one in Dallas, but I did not see it because it was an ESPN game that wasn’t picked up here in Canada. Epic fail on my part, and on my country’s part, I know. The Mavs pulled away in overtime and survived Kris Humphries missing a dunk. That I don’t need to see live to picture. Dirk had 41 points and 12 boards while Tim Duncan reminded us all that he’s still got it (even in a losing effort), finishing with 22 points, 14 rebounds, six assists and four blocked shots.

Lots of guys injured in that game with Marion and Parker both out with ankle injures, Dampier missing the game sick and Ginobili going down with a strained groin as well. Get healthy, Mavs/Spurs!

One of the other big games of the night was in Washington, as the Wizards had their guys back healthy and used a strong second half to take down the Cavaliers, 108-91. LeBron had 34 points and nine assists, but the Wizards had Earl Boykins, and he was great in the final quarter. Boykins finished with nine points but he was all over the floor as Antawn Jamison scored 31 points to go with 10 rebounds.

And the Hawks continue to win. Al Horford makes me smile when he runs the break. What are you thinking about this team? I keep waiting for them to stumble (sorry, Hawks fans), but they don’t. It’s been impressive. 10-2 looks mightly fine in ATL.

Looks like Stephen Jackson is feeling comfortable with his new teammates. Playing 45 minutes, scoring 26 points and taking 21 shots, Jax doesn’t need time to get acclimated, I guess. Bobcats still lost by two to the 76ers, though.

I’d just like to see more of Mr. Holiday, please.

Andre Miller with 10 points and 11 assists in a Blazers victory over the Pistons.

Rashard Lewis bounced back from a bit of a rough seaon debut by pouring in 17 points, 10 rebounds, nine assists and two steals for the Magic and they dominated OKC from start to finish. My fantasy team was smiling all around last night.

Can someone answer this: Is B. Roy really 6-foot-6?

And finally, its time to welcome back both Jamaal Tinsley and Eddy Curry. Both made their season debuts last night. I cannot say enough about how great –and young!– Curry looks. Glad he finally took his career into his own hands. Going to be interesting to see what happens with Tinsley.

It appears Iverson really is going to end up in New York and still, my thoughts are a clustermash of confusion.

I just hope the Nets get their victory against the Knicks on Sunday, first.

The Grizzlies signed Tinsley, in a move that may signal the end of the very short Allen Iverson Era in Memphis (though management says that’s not the case): “Grizzlies general manager Chris Wallace oversees a team that is shaky at the point and has little to no leadership in the locker room. The hope is that veteran floor general Jamaal Tinsley provides an upgrade in both of those areas. Wallace insisted Saturday that signing Tinsley to a one-year, veteran’s minimum deal had nothing to do with Allen Iverson’s weeklong leave of absence due to personal reasons. Either way, Iverson still isn’t with the team and starting point guard Mike Conley entered Saturday’s game against Minnesota as the weakest link to a 1-8 start to the season. ‘We just felt that (Tinsley’s) experience and playmaking ability could be of benefit to us,’ Wallace said. “So we reached out to him. … He’s an accomplished playmaker. We felt that it was a chance to buy some insurance at that position.”‘

Rival teams are already vying for his services, but the media in Indy will not recall Jamaal fondly: “In the end, Tinsley outmaneuvered the Pacers by doing absolutely nothing, by sitting on his backside and collecting paychecks. That’s certainly galling. The Pacers will still have to take a cap hit these next two years, courtesy of Donnie Walsh’s misguided decision to extend Tinsley’s contract years ago. Still, though, it’s not a complete loss. Because Tinsley is gone. Because the stench of the TrailPacers days is gone. All the primary figures who brought so much shame to the franchise are playing elsewhere…Finally, there is closure. The TrailPacers era is over.”

The Pacers’ equipment manager alleges that Jamaal abandoned him during the infamous shooting two years ago, and now he’s taking Tinsley to court: “Indiana Pacer Jamaal Tinsley’s rush for safety during a 2007 shooting left the team’s equipment manager a sitting duck in the back of Tinsley’s Rolls-Royce, a new lawsuit says. Trapped in the back seat, Joey Qatato suffered gunshots to both elbows as gunmen opened fire outside the Conrad hotel in Downtown Indianapolis. Qatato’s lawsuit against Tinsley and the car’s driver seeks to hold them responsible for his injuries.”

ESPN’s report is (gasp!) being shot down in both cities: “You can hit the brakes surrounding the ESPN.com trade rumor involving the Pacers and the Bobcats. The report said the Bobcats would likely get Jamaal Tinsley, Jeff Foster and one of the Pacers swingmen – Brandon Rush, Stephen Graham or Marquis Daniels. The Pacers would get Raymond Felton, Nazr Mohammed and Bloomington North High School’s Sean May. The trade rumor was the talk of the locker room before the Pacers game against the Cavaliers. The talk quickly died down before tip off. The two teams have talked off and on, but there’s currently no ‘serious’ discussions taking place.”

Tinsley, whom the Pacers have done just about everything to erase ties with, is filing a grievance against the team according to his agent:”We’ve tried to deal with the Pacers in a professional matter, but it’s gotten us nowhere,” [Raymond] Brothers said in his first public comments since Tinsley was told to stay away from the team. “Jamaal wanted to work out at Conseco Fieldhouse, but the team told him he couldn’t even do that. It’s an unfortunate situation. We just want to get the situation resolved so Jamaal can resume his career.”